All Roads Lead To Home
by Percussiongirl19
Summary: Evangelina Spinner is a daughter of Mars. She's a spunky and quick witted teenager who can conquer anything... Except love!
1. Chapter 1

EVANGELINA

I've lived a good chunk of my life at Camp Jupiter. My mom was an alcoholic, and died while I was still young. My dad is Mars, the god of war. He couldn't be bothered to watch over one of his many kids, so he sent me here. The campers here have become my family, especially the Third Cohort. I'm the Centurion now, and I have been for the past five years.

My life was pretty uneventful. A couple battles every now and again, and one major war. Everything's settled down since then, but I still felt like something crazy was going to happen to me. I had seen it all, my half brother could turn into animals at will! But I was missing something in my life. I knew it. I was feeling pretty distressed about it, so I decided to pay my brother a visit.

"Hey Ev." He called tiredly when I knocked on his door and let myself into his room. My brother was the praetor, and it was definitely exhausting him. I pulled up a chair to the table he was sitting at. There were battle strategies and maps all strewn over the place. Frank sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. I started shuffling through the papers, analyzing them.

"What are you up to? It looks like some kind of battle in the mountains?" I questioned. Frank closed his eyes and rested his head on his hands.

"Reyna wants me to prep in case there are any threats. She keeps throwing scenarios at me to work on. I stayed up all night trying to decide what path through the mountains to take."

"That's easy. See, go through here, then take this valley over to this path. That'll cut about three days off of the time, and you can attack from the side. See?" I pointed out on the maps. Franks face relaxed, and he smiled. It had been four years since the war, and he was definitely a great praetor, but my brother could be so daft sometimes.

"So why'd you come Ev? You don't just come visit me for no reason. You never have. You only see me when you want something." I rolled my eyes. Frank was right, but he didn't need to know that. I was saved from answering Frank luckily, because Reyna burst through the door.

"Frank! Have you finished those plans yet? I don't have time to waste. We just got a new recruit and I have to give him the tour and-" Reyna seemed to notice me just then.

"Ev, would you do me a favor and show Lucas around? That'll save me from doing it."

"Yeah, I got it." Sometimes I wondered if Reyna knew I had been at camp for twelve years. She treated me like I was unimportant. I rubbed the tattoo on my forearm as I headed for the door. It had the letters SPQR like everyone else, two crossed spears, and two columns of six bars, showing that I had been there for 12 years.

I blinked rapidly at the bright sun when I made it outside. I turned around in a circle, trying to find the kid who I was showing around. My guess is that he would be young, maybe twelve. That's how old they usually are when the monsters start finding them. I swept my eyes over the streets. The only person on the street was sitting in the shade, leaning his back against the wall and looking uneasy. He seemed to be closer to my age, 17, not twelve.

"Where's Reyna?" He asked, crossing his arms, and standing up. He was taller than I was, easily over six feet. His hair was golden blonde, and his skin perfectly tanned. He was wearing a blue t-shirt and khaki shorts. I scoffed at his flip flops. This was New Rome, not the beach.

"Are you Lucas?" I asked, ignoring his question. We were doing this my way.

"Yes, and who are you?" He said.

"Centurion Ev. Reyna asked me to show you around. She's busy." I started walking down the street. When I realized he wasn't following I stopped and turned around.

"Well? Are you coming or do you want to meet the Legionnaires by yourself?" I called. Lucas looked around, kind of scared, then hurried to my side.

"So what brings you to Camp Jupiter?" I asked, making small talk as we walked down the road towards the main part of New Rome.

"I've been wandering for a while. Reyna and I crossed paths and she realized I was a demigod. She brought me here this morning."

"Well you can't be all that important if you only just got here. How old are you, sixteen? Seventeen?"

"I'm eighteen." He ignored my first remark. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen." I pulled my sword from my belt as we walked, playing withe the refracted light on the ground from the blade.

"Who's your parent?" He asked.

"Mars. God of war. And yours?" I didn't expect an answer, but it had started to become a knee jerk reaction when we were dealing with the Greeks.

"Reyna said I'd hopefully know tonight." He kept his eyes forward. When we reached the Pomerian Line, Terminus yelled at me for having my sword. After yelling back a bit out of boredom, I hid my weapon in a bush and continued down the street. Lucas gaped behind me.

"Did you just yell at a statue?" He asked, jogging to catch up.

"Yeah. Part of my daily routine." I showed Lucas the majority of New Rome. He wasn't bad company, I'll have to admit. He asked the right questions, and his knowledge of Ancient Rome was sufficient enough that he made connections.

Eventually I had him sit with me under the aqueduct. I really got to look at him then. It was weird that he struck me as attractive. Not because he wasn't, but because I didn't generally look at guys like that. His hair was blonde and messy. His eyes were dark blue, and the way he was looking at me made me feel like he could see my past, present, and future. Apollo kid maybe? I was never any good at guessing those things.

As we sat in the shade, he pulled the bottom of his shirt up to wipe a bead of sweat from his brow. He had a six pack. This kid was killing me. I laid back in the grass, staring up at the summer sky. I wondered if Reyna was done with Frank yet. I wanted to get rid of Lucas before I did anything stupid.


	2. Chapter 2

LUCAS

Reyna brought me to the barracks. There were kids of varying ages roaming about. Some were dressed in armor, many were carrying weapons. It was odd to me how comfortable they were holding the weapons, like they had been carrying swords and spears their whole lives. Most of the kids were wearing purple camp t-shirts too. Reyna stopped in front of a door, and I bumped into her because I wasn't paying attention to where I was going.

"Don't make that mistake with anyone else or they'll chop your head off." She said. I got the notion that she wasn't kidding.

"I'll be right back. Wait here." She said, throwing open the door. I sank down and leaned against the wall. I had known Reyna for three days, the three days it took to get from where we had met and Camp. She was going to be a while in this room. I could sense it. After about five minutes, a girl came out. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, although strands were curled around her round face in the humidity of the summer afternoon. Her eyes were a sharp green, boring into me. I could tell she was analyzing me. Her hand moved to the sword on her belt. She was wearing shorts, and her sneakers were worn out. I noticed a tattoo on her wrist, but I couldn't make out what it was.

"Where's Reyna?" I asked, standing. This girl was shorter than I was, but not by much. She carried herself proudly too, making her seem bigger than she was. She was thin and muscular, definitely strong. I probably could take her in a fight though. I was taller, and I did have muscles of my own.

"Are you Lucas?" She disregarded my question. Obviously she was in charge.

"Yes, and who are you?" I asked.

"Centurion Ev. Reyna asked me to show you around. She's busy." She emphasized her military rank. She knew she was a higher status than me. I remembered vaguely talking about Ancient Rome in history class. I'm dyslexic, so I've always had a hard time in school. The Romans were very into military and all that. If this was real, then I shouldn't be surprised at how forceful Ev was. I snapped back to reality and realized she was halfway down the street.

"Well? Are you coming or do you want to meet the Legionnaires by yourself?" She called. I remembered Reyna telling me the legionnaires were the soldiers. I hurried to catch up to Ev. I didn't want to meet warriors by myself.

"So what brings you to Camp Jupiter?" She asked. I told her about how Reyna had found me, and how she told me I was a demigod. It all still seemed surreal to me. I learned that Ev was a year younger than I was, but she carried herself like she was older.

"Who's your parent?" I asked.

"Mars. God of war. And yours?" She asked. I told her I didn't know yet.

"How long have you lived here?" She didn't answer, just stuck out her arm. It happened to be the one holding her sword, and I found myself moving to the side slightly. She had complete control of the weapon in her hand, however. I noticed she was showing me the tattoo on her arm. It had the letters SPRQ, two crossed spears, and twelve lines.

"See, twelve bars, twelve years."

"You came here when you were five?" I couldn't imagine someone so young being here. It seemed more like an army base than a summer camp.

"Yup. They stuck me in the Third Cohort. Jason said I had spunk. I was with them for seven years, then I was promoted to centurion a year before the war." Reyna had told me about the war. She said it was four years ago. That meant Ev had been a centurion for five years.

"You were a centurion when you were twelve?" It seemed odd that Reyna would allow such a young girl to lead troops into battle.

"Youngest centurion Camp has ever seen. They called us the baby Cohort, because a lot of the new recruits were stuck in my cohort. A lot of the third had moved up to one or two, so we needed men. Now we're one of the stronger cohorts, 'sides the fifth." I felt like I had a lot to learn about this camp.

Ev seemed to be tough. Years in the military had done that to her. I assumed she was just like any other girl, until she started yelling at a statue. Granted, the statue was yelling back, but I only understood half of what they were saying. It didn't sound like they were yelling in English completely, either. It seemed like a mix of Spanish and French. I understood some words, but not many.

Ev finally threw her sword in a bush, and the statue let us pass. I jogged to catch up to her.

"Did you just yell at a statue?" I asked, still unsure of what had happened.

"Yes. Part of my daily routine. And yes, it was in Latin."

"You speak Latin?" She said it like everyone spoke dead languages.

"You do too." She said after a moments pause. She was speaking slower. I couldn't understand why.

"No I don't."

"You couldn't have answered that if you didn't understand me. I was speaking Latin just then. You can understand it, now we just need you taking the classes to speak it. That's all part of camp life." She grabbed a brochure off of a nearby table. There were a lot of vendors, and a lot of people. Some people nodded hello to Ev, generally the college-age group.  
Finally she pulled me into the shade of an aqueduct and handed me a bottle of water. As I drank I noticed her analyzing me. I didn't mind her toughness. She seemed better than most girls I had known back home. I felty self conscious for having sweat beaded up on my forehead, so I wiped it away with my shirt. Ev rolled her eyes, then laid back in the grass. From the ancient myths, Ev represented the personality of her father perfectly. I laid next to her, wondering when I would find out who my mother was.


End file.
